Cox Will Give Refund, Bonus for Fight Glitch

About 4,500 Cox Cable TV customers who paid for but failed to receive Monday’s Marvin Hagler-Sugar Ray Leonard championship fight will get refunds plus as many as four free coupons for future pay-for-view events, a company spokesman said Friday.

Bob McRann, general manager, said Cox officials are still embarrassed over the technical glitch that prevented some subscribers from seeing the bout and led to a spontaneous protest in front of the company offices by about 200 angry boxing fans on fight night.

McRann acknowledged that the computer breakdown and the televised protest outside his office was a public-relations disaster.

“We’re trying to do everything we can to get the bad taste out of our customers’ mouths,” he said. “We blew the biggest fight of the decade. It was a screw-up on our part.”

According to McRann, the customers who were prevented from seeing all or part of the contest had ordered the fight before March 23, and fell into three categories.

A total of 2,141 customers who did not see any of the fight will get a complete refund and four free coupons for future pay-per-view events. An additional 1,762 customers whose service was disconnected after seeing two hours of the broadcast, including the preliminary bouts, will receive a $10 discount on their bill plus two coupons for pay events.

Finally, 607 subscribers who were connected by the computer while the fight was in progress will receive a complete refund and two coupons.